SuSE (SLES) 11 Works Flawlessly with Windows Server 2008 Authentication

Oct 1, 2009 · 1 min read  ·
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Well that couldn't have been easier! Here's all it takes to authenticate SLES 11 to Windows Server 2008 based Active Directory. During the initial install of SLES, I performed the following:

  • Selected samba-client and winbind during the software installer phase
  • Added my domain's DNS servers to the intitial network config using NetworkManager
  • Ensured I had the right DNS search suffix (the name of my domain: base.netnerds.net)

Surprisingly, I didn't even have to configure samba after my install was completed. I was prompted to join the domain during the initial OS install and everything went as expected. Here are the settings I used:

samba

I logged in using the domain\username format and this too, worked as expected:

login as: base\chrissy Using keyboard-interactive authentication. Password: Creating directory '/home/BASE/chrissy'. Creating directory '/home/BASE/chrissy/bin'. Creating directory '/home/BASE/chrissy/.fonts'. Creating directory '/home/BASE/chrissy/.mozilla'. BASE\chrissy@ariel:~>

Next up, setting up NTLM pass-through authentication in Apache!**

Update:** If you plan to use Kerberos, I recommend you skip straight to using Likewise for all of your authentication needs. I had nothing but headaches from reported bugs with SuSe's built-in Samba and krb5/Kerberos.